Toyota ‘Bullish’ on Hydrogen Amid California Station Plans

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp.’s North American
chief said California’s plan for more than 50 hydrogen fuel
stations within two years is making executives feel “bullish”
about the outlook for its Camry-sized fuel-cell car due in 2015.

Plans by the U.S. state to provide about $47 million for 28
new stations selling hydrogen for fuel-cell cars, along with 10
already in operation and 16 more in development, will be enough
to support at least 10,000 vehicles in California, Toyota’s Jim
Lentz said in an interview yesterday at a Fortune conference in
Laguna Niguel, California. He declined to give a price or volume
goal for the sedan Toyota is bringing to market.

“Just based on the product, based on the infrastructure we
see that will be in place in California, we’re much more bullish
on fuel cell,” Lentz said. “I’m more bullish on fuel cell than
I was on EV. I think the cost of fuel cells is going to be
substantially less than in an EV,” he said, referring to
electric vehicles.

Toyota, which is also providing at least $7.2 million to a
California startup to operate hydrogen stations, has said fuel-cell autos will be an easier zero-emissions option for many
consumers than battery-only vehicles owing to range, performance
and refueling time matching gasoline. Honda Motor Co. has said
it will offer a revamped hydrogen sedan in the state in 2015,
and Hyundai Motor Co. will lease a fuel-cell version of its
Tucson sport-utility vehicle, the first of which arrived in the
state yesterday.

Tesla Relationship

Toyota, the world’s largest seller of hybrid-electric
autos, is concluding a project with electric-car maker Tesla
Motors Inc. this year in which it gets motors and battery packs
for its RAV4 EV crossover. Currently, there are no plans for
Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota and Tesla to work together on
other battery-powered vehicles, Lentz said.

Automakers are under pressure in California, as well as
across the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea, to offer
vehicles that emit little or no carbon pollution and reduce
petroleum use. While fuel-cell vehicles, like battery-electric
cars, produce no tailpipe pollution, a lack of fueling
infrastructure has been a hurdle to bringing them to market.
Driving range and fast refills give hydrogen an advantage as
many consumers don’t want vehicles that can’t go as far as
gasoline autos or need hours to recharge, he said.

Consumers “are used to driving 300 to 350 miles. They are
used to pulling into a station and refueling their vehicle in
five or six minutes,” he said. “That has retarded the growth
of buying pure battery vehicles, because there is the anxiety
about range.”

Toyota’s U.S. sales unit in Torrance, California, is to
relocate to Plano, Texas, within about two years. The company’s
American depositary receipts rose 0.4 percent to $108.06 at the
close in New York. They have declined 11 percent this year.